A: As I describe in the book, I became both frustrated by
and fascinated by my kids’ divergent tastes. From an early age, my son liked
hot peppers, he tended toward the extremes, and my daughter preferred white foods,
comfort food like…mac and cheese.

This became very frustrating, we couldn’t feed the kids the
same things, there were [concerns about] nutritional issues, each was very
picky. I began to think about why they diverged—they had similar genes and were
in the same place. I became interested, and began delving into the topic.

Q: You start the book by discussing the once-famous, now
somewhat discredited “tongue map.” What is the significance of the rise and
fall of this map?

A: It’s kind of fascinating because this map became quite
popular in the last couple of generations. It showed the tongue divided in
different areas. There were thought to be four of them: sweet, bitter, sour,
and salty. This became a fixture in elementary school science experiments.

As molecular biology developed, scientists began to wonder
where does this come from—it doesn’t comport with what we’re finding. They
found that all parts of the tongue could sense all tastes, though not all
equally.

I looked into where did the map come from—there have been a
few scientists who had researched the issue. One traced it back to an
experiment done around 1900, and somehow there was a scientific game of
“telephone”—another scientist exaggerated the differences the first guy found,
and somehow that transmogrified into the map. It was totally wrong, but it
caught on.

Q: You write, “Flavor remains frustratingly paradoxical.”
What are some of the main reasons for this?

A: In researching this, I got frustrated because so many
answers point in two or three directions at once. It is a complicated, human
phenomenon conditioned by biology, but also our culture and family background.
These things are interacting with our biology in many different ways.

The most basic one is that people like stuff that’s
objectively bad-tasting, with a bitter taste or hot-chili-pepper hotness.
Nobody has a biological, neuroscientific explanation for this. Nobody has
nailed that question.

When you get into more cultural/psychological domains, there
are better explanations for this. The most common explanation for why people
like superhot chili peppers was found by Paul Rozin—people like a little
aversion in their lives because it gives them a thrill…like riding a roller
coaster. In the last 30 years, there has been no better explanation.

Q: How much are someone’s flavor preferences likely to
change over the course of their lifetime?

A: It’s constantly changing in kids. Kids are constantly
changing. There are new connections forming in their brains, and old ones
disappearing. Their biology is changing, and that influences their taste.

The most common problem is picky eating—it’s so universal.
There are many speculative explanations for that, but no one has come up with a
super-good one. Maybe [it comes from] hunter-gatherers; no one wants a toddler
stuffing [unknown] berries in their mouth.

Many kids have a strong sweet tooth, and that declines as we
get older. As we get older…there’s a stronger social dimension that influences
our tastes.

The human palate has great flexibility. We can learn to like
almost anything. If we move to a different country, or a different part of this
country, we will develop [new] tastes. There’s a complex interaction with what age
you are, and who you’re hanging out with.

Q: You write, “Taste and smell blend so seamlessly in
flavors that the different senses merge, becoming indistinguishable.” Why is
this?

A: Another interesting basic question the book tries to get
at is what is flavor between human and animal? In humans, we have the merging
of taste and smell, all the senses, the idea of the human mind wrapped up in
flavor; an animal is somewhat different.

The parts of the [human] brain that handle taste and smell
are distinct, and yet they overlap and are integrated. There’s different
information entering the brain through different synaptic [paths], but it
combines into something greater than its parts.

Also, the shape of the head when you chew: taste is
experienced on the tongue, and aroma is passed through…a short pathway. As a
result, we experience that form of smell more powerfully than other animals
[with longer pathways] do. Smells tap into primal features of the brain, like
memory and instinct.

Q: What is the “miracle berry” and do you see a larger
impact for it in the future?

A: The miracle berry is a berry which contains a substance
known as miraculin. People make it into paste, or it can be a pill. It affects
the sensation the tongue experiences. It changes sour into sweet. It’s also
suppressing the sweet taste a little.

It changes the flavors of whatever you’re eating if it
contains acid and sugar. It makes lemons taste like lemonade, it makes limes
taste like oranges, and it makes sour cream taste like cheesecake. It’s an
interesting natural sweetener.

I interviewed a chef in Chicago who was trying to build on
this sensation. He founded a restaurant and then a coffeeshop. His hope is to
build on this because it’s a naturally occurring substance that can fool the
brain into [eating] less sugar. I don’t know how marketable this is, but it has
interesting potential.

Q: What surprised you most in the course of your research?

A: I was surprised at how infinitely flexible [taste] is--you
think of taste as being a chemical sensation. You taste something on your
tongue and your brain has a reaction.

[It’s] flexible because it’s shaped by other forces—your
memories of past meals, what you think about what you’re eating, how something
looks, the price of it, the people you’re with—it all shapes your taste
experience. It does change the nature of the experience.

Also part of what makes it flexible is it’s able to be
manipulated by product placements. It cuts against what we think taste is.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Other than book promotion? I’m trying to come up with
another book idea.

Q: Is there anything else we should know about the book?

A: I tried to write about stuff I found interesting that I
hoped other people would. What I found interesting—it does reach into all those
other areas like our social nature, commerce, neuroscience vs. genetics, all
these things that shape who we are.

About Me

Author, THE PRESIDENT AND ME: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE MAGIC HAT, new children's book (Schiffer, 2016). Co-author, with Marvin Kalb, of HAUNTING LEGACY: VIETNAM AND THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY FROM FORD TO OBAMA (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).